To Carry the Horn

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

After the hounds returned to kennels from their walk, George joined Rhodri at the curtain wall.

“Have they been gone long?”

“They just left a few minutes ago. How’d it go with the hounds? I heard you provided some entertainment here, as you departed,” he said, gesturing to the grounds in front of the manor house.

“Well, we’re learning. Other than that, it actually went much better than I expected,” George said.

As they reached the road and turned left, they cantered to make up some of the ground, dropping back to a walk as the slope began to rise.

“Time for my lesson,” George said. “Everyone says you’re the expert—tell me more about these ways. Who can see them?”

Rhodri turned serious for a moment. “There are old ways that everyone knows about that many have enough skill to use. Those who can’t hire guides. Those are like public roads.”

George nodded.

“To use a way you must be able to ‘see’ one end, or be guided there, and you must be able to enter. Public ways, or unclaimed ones, can be entered by anyone. Private ways require permission, and that’s usually in the form of a way-token of some kind.”

“Who makes the tokens? What can they do?”

“A token’s made by someone who has power over the way, the lord of a place or his way-finders, if he isn’t one himself. It’s a spell tied to a small piece of wood, specific to a particular way, and it can be limited to a person, or limited to a number of uses, or limited to a period of time, or limited to just one direction, or any number of restrictions.”

“So that’s why walking through the spot occupied by the way in the kennels didn’t cause it to open for me,” George said. “How was it I could chase that archer through the way he used? I didn’t have a token.”

“He would have functioned as a guide, perhaps. But really I think from what Ceridwen says that you’re a way-finder yourself, like me, and it’s much harder to keep us out if we set our mind to it. It let in Gwyn, too. Maybe it recognizes more than one owner, since you penetrated it without a token. Normally a private way would be closed, and even a way-finder would need a token to penetrate an actively barred way, though he could probably detect it.”

Rhodri raised a hand to contradict himself. “On the other hand, the way Gwyn opens for the start of the great hunt is always in the same place, but I can’t detect it the rest of the year. There’s something like that for the way Iolo uses at Nos Galan Mai for new whelps. Those ways seem to be stable but hidden, and many way-finders who don’t have our experience insist, from their books, that hidden ways can’t exist.”

“How do you close a way?”

“Its owner ties it to himself or to a few others and issues no other tokens.”

“Can you shut a way held by someone else? Can you keep it from being reopened?”

“That’s the interesting question Gwyn’s going to try to answer, I think.”

Dozens of questions flooded into George’s mind, and he tried to sort out the most important ones.

“Can you make a way or only find them? Is it ‘way-finder’ or ‘way-creator,’ or are they the same thing?”

“There’s a lot of debate on this topic, complicated, as Ceridwen will tell you, by the fact that few of the adepts have been inclined to write about it in detail. There are people who claim to have created ways, but that’s hard to prove afterward and no one’s been able to demonstrate it at will before witnesses. I’ve never made one, myself, as far as I can tell, but only found existing ones that weren’t known or detected closed ones.”

Rhodri continued, “Now, the great hunt often uses ways that weren’t known, the hounds acting as guides, but were they there already or did something else make them? And in front of the hounds is their quarry, once he’s been identified. Can he also use ways without tokens and, if so, how does he make or find them? It’s unlikely that he just happens to stumble across them, they’re not common.”

George’s head spun with the possibilities. “How does the great hunt get home, if they cross one or more ways? Presumably no one would have tokens.”

“The hounds bring us all back to kennels and we must follow them. Stories are told of those left behind making their way home the long way, if at all. I’ve looked for the hounds’ ways, afterward, and not found them. I don’t know if they cease to exist, or if they’re just hidden. My personal belief is that they’re destroyed.”

“If they’re hidden or destroyed, who are they hidden or destroyed by? Who owns them?”

“Good question,” Rhodri said.

Was this religious mystery or superior science? George itched to do some experiments.

He asked, “Why was I able to detect two ways no one else knew about?”

Deadpan, Rhodri said, “I hadn’t arrived yet.”

George smiled. “So you can detect them, yes?”

Rhodri closed his eyes for a moment. “I feel the one we’re approaching at Daear Llosg, but no other I didn’t already know. Show me where the other one is.”

George repeated his mental sweep of yesterday. The small one in the woods west of the manor was still there. He pointed an arm in that direction. “There.”

Rhodri looked again, inwardly. “I can’t feel it. How very disconcerting. Perhaps it’s another hidden way.”

“How would the one from yesterday be different?”

“Perhaps its use by you and Gwyn opened its ownership, in some way?”

George stopped on the road.

“I want to do an experiment. Come, stand with your horse along this line.” He lined up Rhodri to face the small west way. “Don’t move.”

George walked several dozen yards up the slope along the road. He oriented Mosby on the same way.

“The intersection of the two lines our horses are on should tell us where the way is. Can you picture that?”

“We’re not far enough apart for much accuracy, but let’s try this again at Daear Llosg. It’s a good idea.”

They entered the meadow to find Gwyn and Ceridwen standing near the way and Idris with several guards nearby. George had no trouble seeing it, but Ceridwen seemed to be looking at a slightly different place. He dismounted, handing his horse to a guard to hold.

“Can you see it?” he asked her.

“Not well at all. It’s just an ill-focused blur for me, not like most ways.”

“Then why don’t we mark the spot?”

He picked up some loose stones and sticks on the ground and walked over, outlining the space the way seemed to occupy. It was large enough for several horses. When looking through the spot casually, the way was not visible at all, but when George concentrated directly at it, he could barely make out a landscape on the other side, like a very faint window at some distance.

He walked around behind and discovered it had little depth from the sides. He could sense it from the rear, but it was like looking at the back of a television set, nothing to see.

“Can you see into it?” he asked Gwyn. “Do you know where it goes?”

“I can see the river meadow. I don’t understand why it’s still open like this. It should’ve been shut by its owner.”

Rhodri joined them and presented his theory about compromised ownership after Gwyn and George had forced their way in.

“Then we should be able to continue to use it,” George said. “Let’s go find out whose land that is.”

“That would be unwise,” Gwyn said. “They’ve had all night to prepare an ambush just out of our sight behind the opening. It’s not likely to be close enough to someone’s dwelling to allow us to gather a quick identification, and I’m not prepared to mount an expedition with just a few guards. I’d prefer to shut it down, if possible, or at least lock it thoroughly from our end.”

“And just how will we do that, if you’re not the owner?” Rhodri asked.

“I was rather hoping you’d have some suggestions, now that you’re home.”

“If we have some ownership in it now, can’t we tie it down in some way, as with a token?” George asked.

“And how would you go about doing that?”

George hesitated. He thought it could be done, but he had no idea just what to do.

“Go on,” Gwyn said. “Try whatever you think might work.”

George stood straight in front of the way and concentrated. He visualized it: a clear oval shape with a flattened bottom, wider than tall, with its destination faintly visible. He intended to build a mental door across it, but instead he found himself lacing it shut, drawing a broad dark green strap like a ribbon diagonally across it, catching it somehow in the edges and stitching back and forth in one direction, then turning ninety degrees to weave back across it. The way didn’t pucker closed, but the wide interwoven lines filled all the space between and held, like a taut trampoline. Finished, it glistened like a wet leaf and vibrated faintly.

George could still feel the way, but there was no longer any sense of locational presence behind it. “I think I’ve done something,” he said. “Will it hold?”

Gwyn and Rhodri looked, then Gwyn tried to walk forward into the way, and nothing happened.

Gwyn said, “I’ve never seen a technique like that. What made you think of it?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t quite what I intended. I had more of a door in mind than something woven, but it just happened.”

“Can you undo it at need?”

George looked closely at the woven closure and tried to perceive it as a whole. “There seems to be one bit that says ‘pull here.’ I don’t know what would happen.”

“What do you think, Rhodri?”

“I think he’s closed it, indeed, and I’ll bet he can open it again. I’ve never heard of such a thing. It’s still there, but inaccessible, and you know it’s hard to keep me out.”

Gwyn recalled how hard it had been to keep Rhodri out of places he didn’t belong. “Well I remember,” he said. “That’s why they sent you to me for your growing up.”

He saw that Rhodri was puzzled by George’s feat, but he understood far better just how impossible it really was. This was a technique for handling the ways that was unfamiliar to those of his line. Another touch of Cernunnos?

Could George open my own secured private ways, for the family? Could he find ways of his own, or even make them as Cernunnos seemed to do, and keep them secret? He didn’t seem to understand the significance of what he’d just done, but Gwyn was more sure than ever that he was a wild card played by outside forces. Were they benign or was George a threat?

None of this showed on his face, of course.

“I think we can dismiss these guards,” he told Idris.

He continued, blandly, “Now, what about that other way?”

Rhodri and George demonstrated George’s triangulation technique, this time using the entire width of the meadow as a baseline. Gwyn admired this simple method of locating a way at a physical location to avoid an uncertain estimate of distance. Both Ceridwen and Idris were in agreement about the location of the two intersecting lines.

“My lord,” she said, “that’s beyond the palisade to the west and a little south, but not very far. It should be right in the middle of the woods.”

George spoke up. “Your enemy knows we know about this way here, since we’ve both used it. There’s nothing to be gained by stealth. But they don’t know we’ve identified another one. We should try to keep them in the dark about it.”

That was an unexpected show of tactics for a stranger to this world.

“It would mean leaving it open,” Ceridwen said.

“More,” George continued. “It would mean taking only a very small party to locate it physically, and trying to devise some way of spying on it. Can that be done?”

Is this some plan for an ambush, to reduce this party to a small size? Better to go along with it, forewarned, and appear to be unsuspicious.

“We’ll go there now,” Gwyn said. “My kinsman’s correct to suggest we do this circumspectly, so we’ll approach it by a wide circle, then return here so that we can come back to the main gate from the expected direction, as though we’d simply lingered here. We don’t know who are the traitors and their spies, but there’s no sense in making this easy for them.”

He pointed his horse west to take the trail. Let’s see how this plays out.

As they rode upslope to sweep left around the back of the manor, Gwyn dropped back to walk next to George, leaving Ceridwen with Rhodri and Idris.

“How was the hound walking this morning?”

“It went surprisingly well, except for a brief break as we left, out where the most people could see it, naturally.”

Gwyn smiled slightly. “That may be just as well, since the more competent you appear, the more dangerous it may be for you, if they decide the death of Iolo wasn’t enough.”

“True, I suppose.”

They walked on for a moment.

Gwyn looked at George sideways, as if he wanted to ask something George might object to. He said, carefully, “I’ve heard that you’ve made some interesting staff choices.”

George bristled. “Did the words ‘girl’ and ‘lutin’ figure in the telling?”

“Maybe so,” Gwyn said mildly.

“Do we have a problem?”

“Not with me.” Gwyn kept a straight face.

“Well, alright then.”

George took a deep breath and continued. “Rhian has what she needs to be huntsman, if she wants to. She’s very young and has much to learn, but she could do it today and have a good chance of pulling it off.”

Gwyn nodded and listened attentively.

“I want to build up a staff of potential whippers-in and maybe start to develop additional huntsmen. I’ve asked Ives to identify candidates. While I don’t want to make many changes in a temporary position, I think there hasn’t been enough thought given to succession plans, and I want to get that going, including juniors as necessary. It may be that lutins don’t have the necessary powers to be huntsman for the great hunt, but I don’t see why they can’t be part of a pool of whipper-in talent.”

“I concur,” Gwyn said.

George decided to take advantage of how much interest Gwyn was taking in these details and his opinions.

“Then there’s the matter of Owen the Leash and his men. How old is that tradition? How necessary is it?”

“It’s not an old tradition. In fact, now that I think on it in the light of recent events, there’s been a very interesting sequence of circumstances over the last twenty years or so. First we lost some whippers-in to death and other duties so that we were understaffed. Since Iolo refused to use anyone besides family, we were down to Rhys. Then Creiddylad expressed concern that there was insufficient control for the pack and urged me to take steps.”

“Where did Owen come from?”

“From Creiddylad, him and his two companions.”

“What do they do when they’re not being a fence behind the pack?”

Gwyn looked nonplussed. “I don’t really know.” He called forward, “Idris?”

Idris dropped back to join him. “Yes, my lord?”

“What do Owen and his men do all day?”

“Cause trouble, my lord. They laze about and gossip. None of our decent folk will talk to them, but there are always those who like to complain.”

“Why haven’t I been told?” Idris was taken aback by the stern look that belied the mild voice.

“Well, no one was sure if we should look to you or your sister for their discipline, and I was reluctant to bother you with so slight a matter.”

George asked Gwyn, “What would happen if you decided you didn’t need them to protect people from the pack? Would they get other positions? Would Creiddylad take them back?”

Gwyn spoke slowly, “I think she’d send them home. But she continues to drop the occasional word about danger from the pack and how glad she is that they’re there.”

Idris said, “I don’t like it, my lord. If the huntsman doesn’t need them, we shouldn’t have such people around.”

“Why did Iolo tolerate them?” George asked.

“Habit, custom, indifference I suppose,” Gwyn said. “He ignored them and concentrated on the hunting. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to augment the whippers-in with lutins or non-family, and so he may just have been waiting for things to return to normal as more family inevitably became available.” He glanced at George, consideringly. “We tend to take the long view on such things.”

Gwyn pursed his lips, coming to a decision. “Do you need them?” he asked George directly.

“I don’t think so. I think we can control the pack without them, and even in my short time here I’ve overheard them undermining your authority.”

“We’ve been complacent about these gradual changes. No more. They shall return to Creiddylad.”

“If I may,” George said, “we shouldn’t show your hand in this. If we’re not reacting to shadows, then this is some sort of long-term and subtle plan only now coming to a head and we shouldn’t arouse any suspicions that you’ve perceived it. How about we make me the cause instead? I can pick a fight with them and make a very public scene insisting on their departure, under threat of my huntsman duties. You would seem to have no choice but to indulge me, and your enemies would be confused about your degree of knowledge.”

“This is well thought of, my lord,” Idris said.

Gwyn nodded briskly. “Yes. Do it soon. If we’re correct in our suspicions, they’ll need to take some action to replace those particular agents or spies, and we may be able to detect that. The more we can force them to react instead of just waiting for their next move, the easier it’ll be to spot them.”

George said, “I’ll set it up for this week. Thursday, maybe, the second staff hunt. I promise to create quite a stir.”

As they approached their destination along the woodland paths behind and past the manor’s palisade, George paired up with Rhodri.

“Still can’t see this one?” he asked, pointing.

“No, and it bothers me. How many others are hidden from me?”

They came to a wide spot in the path, otherwise undistinguished. George dismounted. “It’s right here.” He drew his boot heel in the dirt to show orientation and extent. “Seems about right for a single rider, maybe two.”

Gwyn looked at Rhodri. “Anything?”

Rhodri shook his head.

“We can’t detect this,” Gwyn said. He sounded disturbed. “What do you see through it?”

George concentrated. “A gray passage ending in more woods, though not these right here. Looks like the same weather and time of day, so I imagine it’s relatively local.”

“Can you seal it?”

George tried to look at it in that special way. “I think so, but if I do, the owner will know about it. I don’t think we should.”

Gwyn remarked to Rhodri, “I wonder if we could’ve seen the other one, before it was activated or before we’d gone through it? I saw it when we brought Iolo’s body, alerted by Ceridwen’s warning, but it may already have been prepared for the attack.”

To George, he said, “I do believe you, kinsman, but we’ve never encountered ways that could be hidden from us, only rumors that such exist.”

While Rhodri described for Gwyn his attempts at finding the ways used by the great hunt that also seemed to be hidden, George wondered how his barely sensed skills could be so different from his ancestor’s. Weaker, that would make sense. But how could they be more powerful?

“It seems that hidden ways are a real thing, then.” Gwyn turned to Ceridwen. “Is there anything you can set up to identify a user of this way or to let us know when it’s used?”

“I can’t include the way itself, but that isn’t really necessary. I can easily enough set traps in this spot to detect any traffic, however it arrives or departs. I’d know when this spot has been used, but not the identity of the user.”

George had been listening. This had possibilities. “If you set up traps on the edges as well as traps in the middle, would you be able to tell by the sequence what direction the person was going in? For example, if he trips the northern perimeter, then the center where the way is, and then no other perimeter, he has presumably entered the way. Can your traps provide that much specificity?”

“Yes, and that’s a good way to detect something hidden. Like looking for the shadow of the thing cast by its actions rather than the thing itself.”

Ceridwen picked up twigs and bits of wood to hold the trip spells, and distributed them around the edges and near the way. When she was done, George scuffed out the mark of his boot heel in the dirt and remounted.

As they turned back along the path, Ceridwen glanced behind them and a breeze stirred, resettling the leaves and removing any signs of their presence.